Kameron Hurley's Blog, page 38

The Business of Writing: A Rant About Audio Books, Covers, and Contracts

One of the most annoying and astonishing parts of being a writer is how little control you have over an actual book once you sign a contract. Unless you get it written into your contract, you don’t contractually have a say in what covers end up on your book or whether or not anyone consults with you about marketing initiatives, or who gets your book to review, really (or in what stage – lots of strange ARCs come out that are missing whole chapters; not mine, but you get the idea), or who gets...

God Bless America: Living our Dystopia

No, that post title is not a directive, that’s the name of a movie I finally ponied up to watch my last night at Wellspring before I passed out.

I’d been putting off this movie for a good long while, primarily because I heard about it not long after some nut job shot up a movie theater IRL, and there’s nothing like IRL violence to put you off lazily violent movies (when I lived in South Africa, I started walking out of movies with gratuitous violence. Unless violence has a good purpose or is t...

Boys with babies and women with knives: Rethinking gender assumptionist power structures

I have been meaning to write a response to this article by Ursula LeGuin for some time. Needless to say, when she says stuff like, “It’s amazing, given their different physiology and complement of hormones, how much alike men and women are in most ways,” I want to tear my hair out. This stuff comes off like somebody saying, “Hey, it’s remarkable that men and women are so… so… human! Like, together. Like, the same species.” This is why I prefer Joanna Russ over LeGuin.

LeGuin goes on to say: “i...

On Fear of Failure and Writing “The Book”

I recently came back from the Wellspring Writing Workshop in Lake Geneva, WI. I got to spend a lovely week with a bunch of other writers – only one of whom I’d met before! – and talk shop and boat around on a lake (“We’re on a boat!”) and look at swanky stuff and ride bikes and read books and even play a card game or two.

It was a nice change of pace, and fun to workshop face-to-face with other writers for the first time in a dozen years.

I’d initially planned to finish a really rough draft of...

The Business of Writing: Attending Conventions After a Long Absence

I’ve heard people call WorldCon a business con. I went to my first one right after Clarion twelve years ago and had a dull time. The panels were dull. The people all seemed very alien. I was bored to tears. Even the parties were awkward, because the only folks I knew were my Clarion buddies. The most memorable bit of the con was listening to David Brin say, after I grilledhim a bit (softly, compared to today) about Glory Season, “I COULD SO WRITE YOU!” as if I was some easily-replicated femin...

Secondary world fantasy vs. future fiction

Iwas only stumped by one question at WorldCon, and that was posed by Elizabeth Bear at the “Looking Forward to the Post-Apocalyptic World” panel. She asked why someone would choose to write future fiction vs. secondary world fantasy and what the primary differences were, or something to that end.

The best I could come up with was, “Well, if I choose to write future fiction I don’t have to make up as many words.”

Seriously. That’s all I could come up with.

Pass.

I realize I’m a bit weird when it c...

Ranting on panels: Just you and a million of your closest friends

The first panel I sat down to watch at WorldCon had a panelist lob out a sexist comment about 5 minutes into it. Also, if I never hear the term “token male on this panel” again, it will go far toward restoring my faith in humanity. You’ll never see me saying I’m the “token female on this panel” because it would lead folks to assume it was true, or to interrogate it, or to question it, like what I said on the panel had less weight than what other people said because hey, obviously, I was indee...

Taking Responsibility for Writing Problematic Stories

NOTE: Contains a fairly major spoiler for GOD’S WAR.

I spent a lot of time this weekend on panelsat WorldCon talking about the responsibilities of being a writer, and how what we put on the page can mean something very personal to people. I spend a stupid amount of time buried in research books and googling shit on the Internet and digging up first person accounts of things and evaluating my own biases, and you know, that shit can get exhausting sometimes. Sometimes you lose focus. Sometimes y...

WorldCon Schedule

So, hey, I’ve been a little distracted the last couple of weeks. But the good news is that it appears I have a more-or-less final schedule for WorldCon in Chicago from August 31st-September 3rd.

I expect this schedule to change slightly before and perhaps even during the con (there appears to be some disorganization in programming this year) but this gives you a pretty good idea of where I’ll be.

Hope to see you all there!

Friday, August 31st

7:00 p.m.

Night Bazaar Party!

Join myself and awesome w...

How I Built My Treadmill Desk for $200

So, after my mega-crazy writing spree on RAPTURE, where I found myself sitting for 14, 16, and even one memorable 20-hour-stretch just… sitting, I decided it was time to finally give in and put together a treadmill desk. Depression and anxiety runs in my family, but I’ve found that if I can be consistently active, I can pretty much lead a normal life. The trouble is, I’ve chosen a sedentary profession. As I’m now working 1-2 days a week from home as part of my day job… well.

The treadmill desk...